We race near Nashville at Harbor Island Yacht Club. Luckily our winters are fairly mild except for a couple of cold fronts. Our winter series starts Saturday with The Change of Watch Regatta. We have short races every Saturday for eight weeks, then a few longer spring races.
The course is on Old Hickory Lake, part of the Cumberland River system. Our longest rides are around ten mile stretches. Our area makes a big bend, going south, west, then north, and back a couple of laps. Lots of tacks and some hilly shoreline to keep us busy.
The forecast is for a high temp of 45 with south winds at 15 knots gusting in the 20's. I will be bumping the shrouds up to 1800 lbs first thing in the morning. We use a 155 genoa and will have around 1200 lbs of crew. They'll be hiking quite a bit, so I'll get to sit ahead of the traveller all I can. We usually get spin runs at 160 degrees for short times as we make the river bends. Then we drop the pole low, forward, and carry her as far as possible.
We are currently in the PHRF B fleet, and our main competition are Northstar 500's in lite air, Swiftsure 33's in heavy. We should have them covered in the heavier wind. We actually chased down the A fleet in heavy air recently, starting 5 minutes after they did.
I really appreciate all the tips and technical info on this web site. Any issues I've had reworking #130 are all documented here by you.
If you're ever in Nashville, look us up and come out for a ride!
